There's nothing wrong with planning ahead. I wonder though, what did you do for an enclosure for the Dayton. Did you put it in the same enclosure the AE AV12 was in? If so did you model it first to see if it's response was going to be similar to that of the AV12? If the answers are yes, then no, then you've not even given the Dayton a fair chance. Even forgetting about the modeling, if you put it in the same enclosure it's still not a fair comparison. On the other hand if it has it's own new enclosure that has the proper specs then it's just falling short of expectations and it is what it is, lol. Having never used anything from AE I can't speak any comparison to the offerings from SSA but I can say that everything I've had experience with from SSA is definitely at the top of the list when compared to most of everything else I have had experience with. Not that it's a large list, but still, they're all impressive to me and I recommend them to everyone at every opportunity because I believe in the product. I wish.